Promotional Information

Awarded Best Novel at the 2010 SFX Sci-Fi Awards An astonishingly original blend of fantasy, humour, ghost story and family drama Eight chapters, many dead people and one live boy comprise this original, funny and gripping story

About the Author

Neil Gaiman is the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of Coraline and Stardust, both of which are major motion films. Neil also writes screenplays for other people's films as well as books for adults and picture books for younger readers. Neil is British and lives in the USA. He travels extensively promoting his books.

Reviews

Thrilling, elegant and joyously macabre. You will love it to death
*Holly Black*

One of the joys of reading Gaiman is how he subverts our expectations of magic, horror, fantasy and the mundane ... A memorable, captivating read
*The Times*

This brief, dark, savoury adventure deserves to become a modern classic of children's writing
*Independent on Sunday*

Suspenseful, well-told and touching
*The Sunday Times*

The best book Neil Gaiman has ever written. How he has managed to combine fascinating, friendly, frightening and fearsome in one fantasy I shall never know, but he has pulled it off magnificently
*Diana Wynne Jones*

Like a bite of dark Halloween chocolate, this novel proves rich, bittersweet and very satisfying
*Washington Post*

The outrageous riches of Gaiman’s imagination. Every page is crowded with invention, both funny and scary
*Patrick Ness*

I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book, and my older self wishes that I had written it
*Garth Nix*

The Graveyard Book, by turns exciting and witty, sinister and tender, shows Gaiman at the top of his form ... a tale of unforgettable enchantment
*New York Times*

Thrilling, elegant and joyously macabre. You will love it to death * Holly Black *
One of the joys of reading Gaiman is how he subverts our expectations of magic, horror, fantasy and the mundane ... A memorable, captivating read * The Times *
This brief, dark, savoury adventure deserves to become a modern classic of children's writing * Independent on Sunday *
Suspenseful, well-told and touching * The Sunday Times *
The best book Neil Gaiman has ever written. How he has managed to combine fascinating, friendly, frightening and fearsome in one fantasy I shall never know, but he has pulled it off magnificently * Diana Wynne Jones *
Like a bite of dark Halloween chocolate, this novel proves rich, bittersweet and very satisfying * Washington Post *
The outrageous riches of Gaiman's imagination. Every page is crowded with invention, both funny and scary * Patrick Ness *
I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book, and my older self wishes that I had written it * Garth Nix *
The Graveyard Book, by turns exciting and witty, sinister and tender, shows Gaiman at the top of his form ... a tale of unforgettable enchantment * New York Times *

A lavish middle-grade novel, Gaiman's first since Coraline, this gothic fantasy almost lives up to its extravagant advance billing. The opening is enthralling: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Evading the murderer who kills the rest of his family, a child roughly 18 months old climbs out of his crib, bumps his bottom down a steep stairway, walks out the open door and crosses the street into the cemetery opposite, where ghosts take him in. What mystery/horror/suspense reader could stop here, especially with Gaiman's talent for storytelling? The author riffs on the Jungle Book, folklore, nursery rhymes and history; he tosses in werewolves and hints at vampires--and he makes these figures seem like metaphors for transitions in childhood and youth. As the boy, called Nobody or Bod, grows up, the killer still stalking him, there are slack moments and some repetition--not enough to spoil a reader's pleasure, but noticeable all the same. When the chilling moments do come, they are as genuinely frightening as only Gaiman can make them, and redeem any shortcomings. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

A baby survives the killing of his family by a mysterious assassin. He crawls to a nearby graveyard and is adopted by the assortment of spooks who occupy the place, soon to include his own recently murdered parents. There he is christened with a new name: Nobody, or Bod for short. Under the watchful tutelage of the dead, Bod learns reading, writing, history, and a few other useful skills-haunting and "disapparating" [disappearing from a location and reappearing in another]. Why It Is a Best: An elegant combination of Gaiman's masterly storytelling and McKean's lovely drawings, this book also works as a series of independent but connected short stories set two years apart, following Bod from age two to 16. Why It Is for Us: In interviews, Gaiman has said that this book took him years to write, and it was worth the wait. Imagine Kipling's The Jungle Book set among a forest of graves. A complete recording of Gaiman reading the book is available on his web site; see also LJ's video with the author from BEA 2008.-Angelina Benedetti, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.